Sermon for 5th Sunday of Easter – 10 May 2020: Acts 7, 55-end; John 14, 1-14.

Sermon preached by Fr Leonard Dooland at the Zoom Liturgy

You may never have visited St. Paul’s Athens, and I know that we have some participants in our Zoom service from other parts of the region or as Nicholas Parsons says when he introduces ‘Just a Minute’ on Radio 4 , ‘and throughout the world’.

Since the middle of March even stalwart regulars at St. Paul’s have not been able to attend the building so maybe the memory is not serving so well. Let me remind you of the four windows at the east end above the altar.

There are four saints in stained glass. One is St. Paul of course, responsible for many of the letters in the New Testament, and along with St. Peter whose missionary journeys are narrated by St. Luke in his second book, the Acts of the Apostles. Paul was martyred in Rome.

The second is Andrew, one of those called by Jesus to be a disciple turned missionary after the great event of Pentecost. Andrew of course is closely linked to Greece, as a patron saint, and whose remains are in the Metropolis at Patra. There is a tradition that in ancient days a monk stole a fragment from one of the bones and sailed to what we now know as Scotland, establishing a shrine there in a place now called St. Andrews,

where there was once the largest ecclesiastical building in Scotland before the Reformation. There is, of course, still the finest University in the world there, founded in 1413. Andrew received his crown of glory in the first generation of believers.

In the lower level we then have two deacons of the church. Like Paul and Andrew, both of these deacons were martyred for their faith. The first is Lawrence. He was a deacon in the church at Rome and received his crown of martyrdom in the year AD298. Usually Lawrence is shown holding a grid-iron, the assumed instrument of his death.

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Homily preached at the 18.00hrs Zoom Evening Prayer Service. (Login details on the St. Paul’s website) Fr. Leonard

Wednesday 6th May – Fr Leonard Dolan

On Sunday in our Anglican tradition the theme for the 4^th Sunday of Easter focuses on the powerful and well known theme of the Shepherd. This theme is always linked to one of the Sundays in Easter, and sometimes it spreads over two Sundays – it depends which year we are in because our Sunday readings are on a three year cycle. It is a great image of the Christ who is our chief pastor.

The metaphor runs through a lot of normal church language. We speak of pastors, the Latin word for a shepherd. Even the word congregation comes from the Latin greges meaning a sheep. When priests are ordained that same image is used of a shepherd/sheep relationship as we are exhorted to place the image of the Good Shepherd before us – the Bonus Pastor.

It is a beautiful teaching from Christ – I am the Good Shepherd.

In the Orthodox tradition the same Sunday has a different focus. The second Sunday after Pascha is the Sunday of the Myrrh Bearers των Μυρόφερων. This is also a very beautiful theme, and one that isn’t given enough attention in the Anglican tradition. It tells of those women who came to Joseph of Arimathea’s garden to tend the body of Christ in the tomb. This couldn’t be done on the day of the burial, because it was both Sabbath and Passover.

Each of the gospels supplies different details about these faithful women. In total there are 8 that the Orthodox tradition names – Mary of Magdala, Mary (the Theotokos), Joanna, Salome, Mary the wife of Cleopas, Susanna, Mary of Bethany, and Martha of Bethany. All women who had been close to Christ, who had ministered to him in life, or who had received from him a ministry of compassion. One of them had of course brought expensive perfumed gum to anoint Christ’s feet at Bethany, a sign that was used to foretell death, and which resonates with one of the gifts brought by the Magi to the crib of Christ.

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Sunday 26 April 2020 – Easter 3: Luke 24: 13 – 35

Sermon preached by the Revd James Harris to the Anglican Church in Greece (by Zoom!)

Today, we hear the story of a walk. In the UK at the moment, we’re getting pretty used to walks. It’s more or less all we’re allowed to do that gets us out of the house. Maybe it’s the same in Greece.

Yes, today we hear the story of a walk – but not just a walk in the park; not a permitted daily exercise walk, nor an essential journey to the corner shop to buy wine… I mean, milk and bread. No, a life-changing, re-orienting, kind of a walk – a pilgrimage, in other words, where the experience of the walk itself is as important as the destination, indeed becomes part of the fruit, the prize of the destination.

This morning, I want to invite you on a little pilgrimage, a spiritual walk, as we explore our own experience of journeying through life, in the light of St Luke’s account of that Resurrection walk to Emmaus.

There are four stages to the journey I have in mind – not necessarily always consecutive or linear – and it will be interesting to note where each of us feels we are today. But, as we prepare to set out, let’s remind ourselves that we are in the company of pilgrims throughout the ages, who have embarked on a journey of seeking God, including those heading for Canterbury perhaps…:

When April with his showers sweet with fruit

The drought of March has pierced unto the root

And bathed each vein with liquor that has power

To generate therein and sire the flower;

When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,

Quickened again, in every holt and heath,

The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun

Into the Ram one half his course has run,

And many little birds make melody

That sleep through all the night with open eye

(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-

Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage…

(Chaucer – from the Prologue to The Canterbury Tales)

So, on this April morning, as Zephyr is perhaps ‘quickening’ the plants on your balcony, let’s set out on our walk with Christ.

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Audio Sermon for Easter 2 – 19th April 2020

Audio Sermon for Easter Sunday 2020

Fr Leonard Doolan – Kolonaki

Audio Meditation for Holy Wednesday 2020

Audio Version of Meditation for Tuesday in Holy Week

Meditation for Tuesday in Holy Week

‘Look, the world has gone after him’ (John 12, 19)

‘Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honour. ‘ (John 12, 20-26)

If only everything was neat and tidy. It is not the case. On Sunday we celebrated Palm Sunday and the Entry into Jerusalem. Yesterday we were in Bethany at the home of Lazarus, Martha and Mary. This latter event is recorded in St. John’s gospel before the Entry into Jerusalem. Then John tells of the Palm Sunday event. If that seems a little complicated just forget it.

We are in Jerusalem and the palm branches have been laid before Jesus. St. John keeps up the pressure on the authorities though. He mentions specifically that Lazarus is with Our Lord. Lazarus is an open wound to the temple authorities and religious teachers, because people had heard about the miraculous event just over the Kidron Valley in Bethany. Naturally enough the crowds are curious, curious not only to see a man alive who had been dead, but if we are right this is a man who had been suffering from leprosy, not only a desperately painful and fatal illness, but a socially isolating illness. No rubber gloves and designer face masks in those days!

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Audio Meditation for the Monday in Holy Week